


Arts and Crafts

by Banananutloaf4life



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: But I edited, Family Feels, Not Beta Read, Protective Steve Rogers, Sort Of, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Team as Family, They're getting there, Tony Stark Feels, arts and crafts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28804725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banananutloaf4life/pseuds/Banananutloaf4life
Summary: Sequel to "Pattern Recognition" by QueenBee4Ever.Steve did not expect to walk in on Thor repairing his armor in the common room. And no one on the team expected the revelations that came next.
Relationships: Avengers Team & Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Thor & Avengers Team, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49





	Arts and Crafts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pattern Recognition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058573) by [QueenBee4Ever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBee4Ever/pseuds/QueenBee4Ever). 



> This fic was inspired by and written as a sequel to the work “Pattern Recognition” by QueenBee4Ever. Although you don’t absolutely need to read that to understand this fic, I would suggest going there first for the optimal experience.

When Steve Rogers walked into the common room of the Avengers tower, he was expecting to find Thor. What he was  _ not _ expecting, however, was the array of tools around the aforementioned god of thunder.

“Thor?” he asked from the doorway. “What are you up to?”

Thor looked up. “Steven! I am repairing the interior layer of my armor. I have already obtained permission from the voice in the ceiling to work on it here.”

Steve looked closer. “That’s… leather? I didn’t know you knew how to work with leather.”

“Most Asgardian warriors don’t,” Thor admitted. “It is considered women’s work. But after I wore out my armor a few too many times, Loki insisted I learn before I ‘got myself caught in enemy lands with unusable armor and no chance of getting it repaired before getting myself killed.’ He is very skilled and taught me himself, before…” Thor trailed off, a shadow overtaking his usual bright expression.

“Everything,” Steve supplied quietly. He was well acquainted with the concept of “before.” Thor only nodded solemnly and returned to his work. 

Steve looked on quietly for a few minutes. Then he spoke up again. “I… back during the Depression, we had to reuse things as long as possible. Everyone knew how to do a bit of mending, but I used to enjoy adding a little embroidery when we had the thread to spare. Now I do it whenever I get a bit bored of drawing. Do you mind if I bring it out here?”

Thor looked up again. A slow grin spread over his face. “That would be wonderful, Steven.”

Steve quickly ducked into his room, coming back with a folded but still huge seeming piece of yellow fabric, a spool of brown thread, and a fairly large embroidery circle. 

Thor observed him. “What are you making?” 

“The blanket’s nearly worn through,” Steve replied, nodding towards the abused blanket draped over the back of the sofa. “I’m working on a new one.”

Thor’s eyebrows wrinkled. “Forgive me, I do not know much of Midgardian fabrics, but is it not a bit thin? It does not seem as though it would be very warm.”

Steve laughed. “This is only the decorative layer. When I finish, I’ll sew it to a much thicker layer of fleece. Fleece on its own is too thick and fluffy to embroider easily.” Thor nodded in understanding.

They sat together in semi-silence, occasionally exchanging a few words about whatever they were working on.

Barely half an hour later, Bruce walked through. He was still half asleep and completely absorbed in his quest for breakfast, not even noticing the myriad of crafting supplies and pointy objects in the living room, much to the amusement of his two teammates.

When he re-emerged from the kitchen, a great deal more coherent after a few slices of toast, Bruce froze.

“Are you guys…” he trailed off.

“Yes, yes we are,” Steve answered the unspoken question solemnly. “Join us?” he asked. Bruce nodded.

“Hang on a sec,” he called, disappearing down the hall. Bruce returned with a hand loom, a half-finished fabric panel set up on it. Steve pushed aside the bulk of the fabric he was working on, and Bruce set up his loom in the now-vacant space. He sat down and started working the shuttle through the warp threads.

The three friends started chatting a bit more, Steve now talking about some movie that he’d watched the previous night and Bruce clarifying for Thor exactly how much of the movie was realistic (almost none of it). They got so into it that between the conversation and the sound made by their activities, not even Steve noticed the quiet rustling noises in the ceiling.

As a result, they were all rather surprised when the vent in the center of the room popped open and Barton stuck his head out.

“Oh hey, Clint,” Steve greeted him, relatively unphased. Bruce nodded at him, and Thor waved excitedly.

Clint raised his eyebrows at them, which looked very odd upside down. “Are you lot having a crafting convention or something?”

“Or something,” Bruce agreed happily. “Wanna join us?”

Clint grinned. “Don’t mind if I do.” He pulled his head back into the vents, shuffled around a bit, then jumped out with a half-finished macrame project. Try as he might, Steve couldn’t figure out what it was intended to be, but Clint just started knotting away happily while he chattered on about anything and everything, joking along with Steve and Bruce about the movie and teasing all of them.

Eventually, the conversation shifted to stories of past missions.

Clint was the most recent story-teller. “So of course, when we reach the lab room, what do we see? Not a bunch of scientists, oh nooo, that would be far too easy. Instead, we get two dozen armed guards. Naturally, I took my half of them out super fast - ”

“Sure you did,” Natasha drawled. At some point, she’d showed up and was leaning against the doorframe. “I seem to recall something about you tripping over a rolling cart and my having to save your ass.”

“Weeell…” Clint tilted his head, grinning sheepishly. “It’s a matter of opinion?”

Natasha gave him an unimpressed stare. The other occupants of the room chuckled. She sauntered in, whacking the back of Clint’s head before sitting cross legged in front of the coffee table and pulling a small pouch out of nowhere. The others looked on in interest as she pulled out a ball of fine thread and a really tiny shuttle.

“Lady Natasha, what is that?” Thor boomed. “I have never seen such a craft.”

“It’s called tatting,” she replied. “It’s a type of lace-making. I enjoy the focus that the craft requires; actually I spend a lot of time on it. I also do bobbin and needlepoint lace, but today I’m in the mood for something a little less fine.” Thor looked on with great interest as her skilled fingers produced the first loops. 

Now that five people were in the room, the atmosphere was almost like that of a party. Everyone was joking around, odd scraps of material had fallen on the floor here and there, and at some point someone had even started some music which they randomly started singing along to. This was the scene that Tony walked into when he reemerged after pulling a week-long spree in the lab and then promptly passing the fuck out for ten hours. He froze in the doorway.

“Hey Tony!” Clint called out.

Tony rubbed his eyes. “Am I hallucinating or is everyone really getting all artsy in my living room?” There was an odd note to his voice. Steve heard it, but shrugged it off as the genius still being half-asleep.

“Yup!” Clint honest-to-God  _ chirped _ .

“Riiiiiight,” Tony said. The odd note was still there in his voice. He gestured vaguely in the air. “I’m just gonna… Coffee.” Tony shuffled through, shooting looks at them all from the corner of his eye. Steve shifted uneasily at his teammate’s behaviour.

Tony retrieved his coffee and camped out in a corner of the room with one of his many tablets. But unlike usual, he was nearly silent, only occasionally causing a slight rustling by changing his position. He also kept randomly staring at them all, as if confronted with an equation that was resisting his attempts to solve it.

Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Tony, what’s going on? You’re acting weird, and frankly it’s killing the mood.”

Tony’s face went blank. “Sorry. It’s just, don’t any of you see anything…  _ wrong _ with all this stuff?” His tone was carefully even, but the insinuation made Steve’s blood boil. He opened his mouth to snarl at Tony, but Natasha beat him to it.

“If you want to join us, you’re welcome to. We’d be happy to teach you. If you’re just going to be a sexist asshole,  _ get the fuck out, _ ” she hissed.

Steve’s anger got even stronger at the pure, awful relief that flashed in Stark’s eyes at that moment, and the way he practically ran out of the room. All movement and noise in the room had stopped, save for the music playing in the background.

Steve closed his eyes and let out a sigh through his nose. He looked over at Bruce, who was very carefully not looking at any of them.

“Sorry Bruce. I know he’s your science bro and all, but…”

“It’s alright,” Bruce said to the cushion next to him. “It was a perfectly valid reaction, and Tony deserved it. I just didn’t think that he’d be a bigot after, well, how accepting he was of the Other Guy.”

They all regarded Bruce sadly. For him, this was practically a betrayal. Tony - no,  _ Stark _ \- was the first person he’d really managed to learn to trust again.

Steve’s face hardened. He wouldn’t let someone like Stark ruin this for any of them, teammate or no. So when the door slid open again, his head snapped up, mouth opening to tear into the other man when -

He stopped. Dead. There was Tony, with a large crocheted bag clamped in a death grip, and looking as if he was one word away from bolting. He entered the room as quietly as Steve had ever heard him, perching awkwardly in the same corner he’d occupied earlier. He refused to meet their eyes, opening the bag with faintly shaking hands.

And out came a golden crochet hook, a ball of red yarn, and a half finished doll of some sort. Steve sucked in a breath sharply, because now everything made a terrible sort of sense and - oh,  _ Tony _ .

None of them said anything to Tony directly. They simply picked the conversation up from where they’d left off, till Tony eventually relaxed and started talking himself. Until he was the same man they’d all gotten to know, but with one more mask pushed aside.

And they were glad of it. They were glad when what turned out to be a red octopus became the coffee table centerpiece and when a Hulk-green crocheted scarf was Bruce’s birthday present. They were even glad when Tony used his crochet skills to create a net that he hid in the vents and used to capture Clint during the next prank war.

They were glad because it was a sign of his opinion of them, to even consider sharing a part of him that someone had so viciously attacked that he’d found it necessary to slam even stronger walls in front of it then his standard fortress of a personality.

Because  _ that  _ sort of trust was far more valuable than anything else he - or any other person - could ever give them.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s the full list of crafts that I imagine each of them doing.
> 
> Thor - Leatherwork  
> Steve - Embroidery (beadwork included)  
> Bruce - Hand Weaving  
> Natasha - Bobbin and Needlepoint Lace-making, Tatting  
> Clint - Macrame  
> Tony - Crochet, Lace Crochet, Knitting
> 
> I hope you all like it. Maybe give me feedback in the comment section?


End file.
